by Col Buchanan
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Badlands
It was barely noon in the Great Hush, yet already complaints were starting to filter back and forth along the line of riders, mixed with calls for a rest.
Ignoring them all the longhunter pushed onwards, unconcerned by their lesser stamina in the saddle. Ash too ignored his own body’s complaints, the numbness of his limbs and the growing twinges in his lower back.
Ahead of them to the south a fearsome thunderhead bloomed darkly in an otherwise blue sky. Ash listened to the fading report of the thunder echoing across the empty badlands all around, and watched the grey skirts of rain trailing in the distance. Somewhere in that direction, beyond the unseen horizon, lay the rift valley of the Edge, location of the kree warrens – where they hoped to find enough Royal Milk for the Isles of Sky; enough to bring a boy back to life.
At their backs and far beyond sight by now, the Falcon and the rest of the crew waited for their return.
Ash rode at the very rear of the column, responsible for the tail while the longhunter Cole took the lead. Chewing on a long stalk of grass, he looked along the line of riders sauntering casually towards the distant thunderstorm to the south. Four skymen had volunteered for the mission, tempted by Ash’s offer of gold, including Dalas the second-in-command, oversized on his mount and a poor rider at that, glancing back over his shoulder. Beyond the crewmen rode Meer, staring up at the massif of clouds ahead; Kosh chomping on an apple; Aléas just riding; Cole at the front chatting down to the cat.
The badlands here were rugged corrugations filled with gulleys and dry stream beds. Cole turned them so that they would skirt the edges of the rainfall instead of going through it. Even so the wind picked up as they grew closer, warm and humid against their sweating faces. It tussled the white flag that flew from a pole fixed to the longhunter’s saddle, which Cole used often to gauge the prevailing direction of the wind, flowing now east to west across their line of travel.
Ash plucked the fabric of the damp greasy robe he wore from his chest, if only to relieve himself of the unpleasant sensation of its cloying touch against his skin for a moment. Like the rest of them, his clothes had been left to marinate overnight in a barrel of olive oil mixed with kree juice. In the dark hours before the rising of the sun, down in the hold of the skyship amongst its packed supplies, the party had cursed and grimaced as they’d pulled the heavy and sodden garments onto their naked frames, and then had set about the awful business of moving around in them. With the same stinking solution they had rubbed down their zels while the animals reared and fought against their ropes and flared their nostrils against the reek of it, the party bickering at each other all the while, tempers shortened by what they had to wear and what they were about to do next.
‘Make certain you are still here when we return,’ Ash had told the captain before they left, though Trench had only nodded and glanced away, something angry and morose in his expression, as moody as the sky.
On the move Ash ate a quick lunch of jerky and bread, one leg crossed casually over the saddle, and gazed through his sungoggles at the badlands shimmering in the fierce daylight, searching for signs of life. He was about to take a gulp from his waterskin when the line stopped ahead, and Ash saw that everyone was gazing eastwards, hands shielding their eyes.
The old farlander leaned forward in his saddle.
Movement flashed out there. With nostrils flaring Ash reached for his eyeglass and quickly focused its rocking field of view on a band of kree, ten of them raising dust, scooting fast towards the north in the direction of the ship.
When he lowered the glass he turned to the longhunter at the head of the line. The man was checking the little flag flying on his zel for the direction of the wind. He seemed satisfied with what he saw, for he kicked his mount onwards without concern and the others followed behind, watching the black specks of the kree until they could see them no more.
No one suggested stopping for a rest after that.
*
A wind from the Edge could send men insane, Cole had warned them in earnest, for such winds carried the narcotic scents of a million kree risen on the thermals of the rift valley.
Now, with his white flag suddenly fluttering in a different direction, the longhunter’s expression darkened as the breeze began to flow against their faces, heady with the odours of the kree.
The longhunter quickened their pace, his occasional glance back along the line betraying his concern. He told them to tie scarves over their faces and to breathe slowly, and to keep an eye on each other. Soon a potent stench had filled the air, causing Ash’s head to feel giddy with every breath he inhaled.
The zels grew harder to control, a condition which only worsened with every new sighting or scent of kree. It seemed the kree were all about them now, and despite Cole’s insistence that the creatures’ vision was poor and that they could not see far, he kept the party out of sight anyway, using slopes and twisting ravines where no large animals were to be seen anywhere. No birds even.
At last the Great Hush was truly, deathly silent.
Swaying in his saddle, Ash stooped down and snatched up another long blade of yellowed grass and placed it between his teeth. He felt a fat drop of rain splash onto the back of his hand, then another on his shaved head. Thunder resonated overhead, and then a grey deluge was pouring down on the land slanting in the wind, cutting their visibility to almost nothing.
A line of huddled riders. Cole in the lead, little more than a vague suggestion of form.
Off to their left, the cat was spinning in a circle after her tail.
Ahead, Kosh started to sing at the top of his voice.
These scarves over their faces, he reflected, seemed to be helping not at all. In front of him the skyman Jarad was rocking back and forth now in his saddle. Aléas was bunched down beneath his cloak. Dalas played with a knife and glared about for something to use it on. The column picked up pace again, the zels cantering now.
It was a bad idea giving the zels their head like this over rough ground. They were too close to panic as it was, too likely to snap a leg. Yet faster they rode, galloping now through the rain-slashed air with clods of mud flying from their hooves. ‘Why are we running?’ he called ahead, but no one would answer him.
‘Yah!’ Ash shouted and kicked his zel up the line, glancing at each face as he passed by. It was as though they were all in a trance, their eyes fixed on the rider directly ahead.
He came up alongside Cole, and yelled at him through the gusting rain.
‘Why are we galloping, man?’
At last the longhunter noticed him. Cole shook his head, looking dazed.
‘What?’
Ash reached out, grabbing the zel’s bridle to slow the animal down. In moments he had slowed their pace again. Their mounts snorted hotly.
‘How long until we can make camp?’ he asked the longhunter.
Cole blinked at him from under the dripping brim of his hat.
‘A few hours, I’d guess. Hard to tell in all this rain.’
‘Can you make it?’
‘Of course I can make it. Get back in line, old man, we’re losing daylight here.’
*
Evening. The rain a steady thin drizzle, the gloomy twilight deepening on the cusp of darkness. The line stopped. Ash blinked through his fatigue and saw how the world ended not a throw beyond his nose.
It was the Edge, a ragged lip across the surface of the world; a haze of rain falling into the gulf of space beyond.
Quickly they headed for a nearby hillock right on the rim of the rift, a low flat-topped outcrop with a copse of stunted boli trees standing upon it. Cole sent in the cat to check that it was clear, then spurred his mount up the slope after hearing her call out.
At the top, amongst the cover of shrubs beneath the trees, they dismounted in a small clearing, where a pool of water shimmered in the rain. Soaked to the skin they stretched and moaned in relief before dragging out their tarps, whi
ch they were quick to string up between the trees for shelter. Only after that did they see to the zels.
‘Can’t remember the last time we rode like that,’ Kosh said as he rubbed his sore backside.
‘There was a time,’ Ash remarked stiffly, referring to the days of revolution, ‘when we used to ride all day for the pure joy of it.’
‘Aye. We must have had backsides of leather.’
The others looked little better. Few seemed able to speak.
‘Careful here,’ Cole called back, squatting down at the edge of the dripping undergrowth along the rim. One by one the others hunkered beside him, the breath catching in their throats.
Cole had described this stretch of the valley system as a mere finger, yet here, now, it was the deepest valley Ash had ever laid eyes upon, like something from the realm of imagination. In the fading light the far side was obscured by the shifting sweeps of rain. Directly beneath them, over the crumbled rocky lip they lay along, slopes covered in lush jungle seemed to fall forever into clouds of mists.
‘How long will the descent take us?’ he asked with his mouth suddenly dry.
‘A day at least if we set off at sunrise. Maybe twice that getting back up.’
‘It’s big,’ came Aléas’s voice along the line.
No one spoke after that, each pair of eyes reflecting the gulf of space below them that was the legendary homeland of the kree.
‘Better get what sleep we can,’ announced the longhunter as he stood again. ‘We’ve a long day ahead of us.’
‘Sleep,’ retorted one of the Caffey brothers, the young crewman rising to his own feet. ‘As though I could even close my eyes in this forsaken place.’
‘Then you get first watch,’ snapped Cole. ‘And if I catch you sleeping, I’ll kill you myself.’
*
Beneath a tarpaulin strung between trees, the three Rōshun lay with their heads propped against the saddles of their zels, trying to sleep in the humid night air while the endless rain drummed above their heads.
Aléas breathed lightly where he slept, undisturbed by the fitful snores of Kosh, who had finally drifted off at last, or by the awful layer of grease soaking his clothes and skin. Only Ash remained awake, troubled by the pains in his head and the pulses of colour in his vision, worsened by the kree scents laden in the air. He leaned against a saddle chewing chunks from a strip of jerky, thinking of home, his real home, back in far Honshu; perhaps because here in the deep Hush, perched on the very rim of the Edge and his life, he felt more distant to that time and place than he ever had before.
It had been a good life back then, raising his hunting dogs and supporting his young family. Yet Ash had longed for more than that, yearning to see the wider world for himself, to travel and explore, and so at times his family had seemed like a burden to him, something to be freed from.
What a young fool I was.
Footsteps were approaching in the darkness, crunching through charred fallen leaves. Ash reached for the hilt of his sword, but it was only the longhunter Cole in his dripping hat, bending down beneath their tarp to peer at their forms through the gloom. Next to him the cat snuffled at Ash’s bare feet, not minding the rain.
‘Wake him up,’ the longhunter growled, and shook Kosh roughly until he spluttered and opened his eyes. ‘You’re snoring loud enough to wake the dead,’ Cole told him in annoyance. ‘You want to bring the kree down on our heads?’
‘I can hardly help it if I snore,’ Kosh complained, rubbing his tired face.
‘Then don’t sleep,’ Cole retorted, and he wasn’t joking.
When the longhunter hurried away through the rain the cat lingered behind for a while. Ash could sense her attention focused on the strip of jerky in his hand. He liked these domesticated prairie lynxes of the Midèrēs, especially this one, who reminded him of the springers he had bred and raised back in the old country, dogs that could run and run forever.
‘Who needs sleep anyway?’ croaked Kosh after the retreating form of Cole.
Ash observed him in the darkness, reminded once more that years had passed since his old friend had pursued vendetta in the field, that he was out of shape both physically and mentally.
‘You’re certain you are up to this?’ he asked his old friend once more. ‘You could stay here and hold the camp with Meer until we return.’
‘If you ask me that one more time, I’m going to bust open your chops. I’m fine. You need everyone you can get down there.’
Ash bit off another chunk from the jerky then threw the rest to the cat, who caught it with a snap of her teeth and chewed it down. A gentle pleasure flowed through him as he watched her eat; the simple delight of providing sustenance to another.
‘Just there,’ mumbled the sleeping Aléas aloud, rolling onto his side. ‘Mmm. Just there.’
The two old farlanders chuckled despite their weariness. Kosh shook his head in wonder.
‘Dreaming of women, even now.’
‘How do you know it’s a woman he dreams of?’
A moment of startled silence.
‘You think?’
Ash shrugged, knowing that the kree scents were loosening their tongues.
A voice cried out into the night, the skyman Jarad still locked in the grip of his nightmares beneath one of the other tarpaulins strung between the trees. A figure crossed the clearing. Cole’s hushed tones sounded out to quieten the man down.
‘I was thinking of home just now,’ Ash confided.
‘Funny. You say home and instantly I know you don’t mean Cheem, nor that rock in the sea that Coya brought us to. The old country always remained in our hearts, no matter how far we travelled from it.’
Ash exhaled in acknowledgement.
‘You recall the seasons in the highlands, how fast they would turn, always somehow a surprise?’ he asked his old friend. ‘The herds of wild zels on the ridges? The migrations of featherscrapes blackening the skies for days? The red hooks spawning in the rivers, thick enough you could almost walk across their backs? You remember?’
‘I remember the challo festivals,’ Kosh told him. ‘Dancing and feasting and rutting with pretty girls for weeks on end. Happiest times in all my life.’
Both fell into an introspective silence.
‘I wonder if my wife and children are still alive,’ Kosh mused to himself. ‘I wonder if they even remember me.’
Don’t go there my friend, thought Ash, and just then he realized how few times they had ever spoken of these things in their thirty years of exile.
Over the decades, news of the old country had reached them from silk merchants who had crossed the ocean, and always the news had been bad. Since the defeat of the revolution and the capitulation of the rebel lowland provinces, many of the highland clans had been pacified once more by the civilized war machine of the overlords. Those things they had been fighting to stop had happened anyway.
Massacres had left thousands dead. Hundreds of thousands more had been cleared from their lands and driven down into the lowland cities in indentured servitude. For many of those highlanders fortunate enough to remain, their land had been seized and rents forced upon them for living on what was previously their own. Now they paid taxes for everything in their lives, even the fiery spirits they distilled in their homes, even the water that sprang freely from the ground.
Only the most cunning of clans still lived with their freedoms in the vastness of the mountains. They continued to resist what others had found to be irresistible, and hoped some day to inspire another uprising – for there would always be other uprisings, so long as the overlords ruled over the people.
‘We could have gone back,’ Ash heard himself say. ‘We could have joined those still living free. Who would have known us after all these years?’
But Kosh only scoffed at that.
‘To live amongst strangers? To see with our own eyes how much has been lost?’
‘They are still our people. Our kind. And the mountains will still be ther
e. The birds and the sky and the spirit of the place.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Kosh. ‘I’ll give you that.’
Ash knew that he was high on the soupy air, but he didn’t care.
‘At least we fought for them,’ he declared with passion. ‘When the overlords tried to enslave us like the lowlanders, at least we stood up and fought back.’
‘We did, didn’t we? And we gave those bastards a bloody good hiding too, never mind the odds against us.’
‘More than that. We almost won.’
‘Aye, almost,’ said Kosh with a grimace.
But Ash shook his head in defiance. ‘We lit a fire under the backsides of the overlords. And the fire still burns. Next time we shall win.’
Kosh chuffed through his nose.
‘Aye, old friend. Next time.’
His sober tone stilled Ash’s tongue.
Other voices drifted softly through the camp, the two Caffey brothers, arguing over zels again. It was all the two Coraxian skymen ever seemed to talk about, that and the family stud ranch they were one day going to run together.
‘I’ll be glad to be gone from this place,’ Kosh grumbled, rubbing his face again in weariness. ‘I miss my sleep.’
‘Bad dreams?’
‘Every time I drift off in the Hush they’re waiting for me.’
‘Your victims,’ Ash said.
‘Yes, how did you know?’
‘I’ve been having the same dreams myself.’
The rain hammered down above their heads. Ash peered out from the tarp, regretting that he had spoken. He could just about see the dim shapes of the others, sitting or lying beneath their tarps around the small clearing.
‘I see my victims of vendetta,’ he spoke at last. ‘Not the High Priests and Beggar Kings and all the other wretches drunk on power. I see the women who killed their wealthy husbands in self-defence, too enraged to be deflected by the husband’s seal. I see the young ones who barely even knew what they had done. I see the desperate driven to murder by their need for coin. I see all the people who acted out of a sense of justice, seeking retribution for what happened to their sisters, their daughters, their sons. I see everyone who never deserved it.’